Our story

Judith Randel and Tony German founded DI in 1993 with the mission of ending global poverty by gathering better data on people in poverty and the resources that could be helping them.

Having established and managed the Reality of Aid project in 1993, we published the first report in the series in 1994. The first edition had chapters from 20 OECD countries and presented an independent review of global development assistance spending.

In 2000 we became a partner in the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, as well as publishing the first Global Humanitarian Assistance Report. This report is a key international publication for understanding the global financing response to humanitarian crises, and the 16th edition was published this year .

We opened our first office in 2007 and established DI’s not-for profit arm, Development Initiatives Poverty Research. That same year we also began talks with the Hewlett Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on resource tracking.

DI was instrumental in the 2008 establishment of the International Aid Transparency Initiative, together with 13 founding governments and development agencies. We continue to be the technical lead for IATI today, as part of the hosting consortium led by the UNDP.

In 2011 we established our Africa Hub in our new office in Nairobi, Kenya, and began working with local partners in Uganda and Nepal. Having a presence in East Africa and Nepal allows DI to better help local partners access and use data to catalyse change.

We launched our Investments to End Poverty work in 2013. Through this project, DI has been assessing the impact of all resources on poverty reduction to inform the work of donor governments, multilateral institutions, domestic governments and other key stakeholders. In addition to a range of other outputs, comprehensive reports were published in 2013, 2015 and 2018 to unpack the complexities of development finance over time, and how it can play a role in getting poverty to zero.

DI established a US charity, Development Initiatives Poverty Research America (DIPRA), in 2015. We also opened an office in Washington, DC, which is where our staff in the US are based today.

After 22 years at the head of DI, Judith Randel and Tony German appointed Harpinder Collacott to replace them as Executive Director in 2015. She brought a wealth of experience to the role including work with the War Crimes tribunal for Sierra Leone and the UK and European parliaments.

In 2016 we published a new organisational strategy to set out how we would contribute to the new Sustainable Development Goal era, and reaffirm our commitment to using data to ensure that decisions about the allocation of resources result in an end to poverty.

We were invited to join the Leave No One Behind Partnership in 2016. This joint global initiative saw DI join forces with CIVICUS and Project Everyone, with support from DFID, to support the interests of the world’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged people.

After 24 year DI rebranded, gaining a new look and feel, new logo, and the first articulation of who we are at our core - a trusted friend. Our new brand brought to life the importance we place on being collaborative, optimistic and transparent, as well as representing our forward-looking, innovative and agile approach.

In 2018, DI was selected to host the Global Nutrition Report until 2021. In 2020, this was extended for a further three years to 2024. The Global Nutrition Report is the world’s leading independent assessment of the state of global nutrition, and aims to drive greater action to end malnutrition in all its forms.

The fellows are a professional network of high-level experts working alongside DI staff to support the development and delivery of high-quality data and evidence to decision-makers to support them to drive sustainable development and end poverty.

Our new website shines a light on the impact we are having through our key projects. We transformed our publications into digital formats to make them more accessible and easier to navigate and share, and added dedicated pages showcasing our in-country work, bringing to life the impact we are having in these focus countries.

This data tool uses unique real-time data from the International Aid Transparency Initiative to track and analyse aid commitments and show how aid trends may be changing.

These help stakeholders working to reduce poverty and promote sustainable development to access, visualise and understand information about what is happening across a wide range of socioeconomic indicators as well as public spending. The Spotlights map data, show key statistics and compare areas and indicators in detail – from national to county levels.

In 2021 we published a ten-year strategy setting out our ambition, focus and approach to help deliver a more equitable and resilient world.

In 2022, Adrian Lovett was appointed CEO of DI. He brought a huge range of experience to the role, having served as President and CEO of the World Wide Web Foundation, and spent five years at campaigning and advocacy organisation ONE, initially as Europe Executive Director and later as interim CEO.